Josh McDaniels

The Patriots have done the seemingly impossible by only increasing and adding to the drama and intrigue since losing Super Bowl 52. Josh McDaniels spurned the Colts after a long sit-down with Robert and Jonathan Kraft and Bill Belichick and will remain with the team.

Belichick is still locked for 2018 according to Mike Reiss, but it would appear McDaniels is now the successor-in-waiting, even if no assurances were made.

Source close to situation says clarity on Bill Belichick’s status in New England (Belichick is locked in to coach Patriots in 2018) and stability for family among top factors for Josh McDaniels’ sudden change.

Given how the Super Bowl unfolded I think pretty much everyone can agree it was on defense where the changes were most needed. McDaniels and Brady have a special relationship as we saw in Tom vs. Time — keeping that intact for the rest of Brady’s career will ensure they squeeze every last bit out of the quarterback.

Brady and McDaniels can just keep on trucking, welcoming back Julian Edelman and Malcom Mitchell to an already-deep group.

The questions for them start at tackle and running back. I would bet a two-year deal like they did with Matt Light in 2011 makes sense with Solder. Then it’s a coin toss with either Dion Lewis or Rex Burkhead. Keep one, add in mid/low-level free agency and draft. It will be interesting to see how they evolve.

After almost losing everyone but Belichick, getting back McDaniels and all the coaches he was taking with him (ST Joe Judge, QB Jerry Shuplinski) is a welcome relief. I don’t know what exactly it means for Belichick, whether he plans on transitioning to more of a general manager role or just peacing out, but it appears McDaniels will be the next head coach, maybe as soon as 2019.

Finishing off the film reviews of the Saints game with this quick-hit look at the offense. This looked like the Patriots offense we’re used to. Keep the chains moving, sprinkle in some trickeration and big plays, and win the short yardage situations with their power back. Despite the absences of Julian Edelman and Danny Amendola, the Patriots offense looked pretty much like we’ve come to expect.

As always, watching the All-22 really gives you a better sense of how teams defended the Patriots, but also allows you to take a closer look at things that were missed on initial glance. One big thing that stuck out to me is that I don’t think Tom Brady, Brandin Cooks and Josh McDaniels are quite on the same page yet. And I also think that Nate Solder isn’t quite playing the best football of his career.

I don’t know about you guys but I pretty much live for specials like NFL Films’ Do Your Job II which premiered last night on NBC. It was one of the rare glimpses behind the Patriots curtain, with rare insight into what went on behind the scenes of last year’s playoff run.

DYJ2 now joins Do Your Job 1 and Bill Belichick’s A Football Life as some of the only true peeks as to what goes on behind the scenes in Foxboro. This is the kind of stuff that I think about constantly when I’m writing this blog — football strategy… what sets the Patriots apart from the rest of the league that has been trying, and failing, to catch them for the past decade-and-a-half-plus.

Well there was plenty of that, and this special was once again filled with sights and sounds to delight all Patriots fans who wonder what makes the Patriots so good.

The fact that we’re now just a few days away from the Patriots season kickoff (and I think I just got a ticket to the game) has me ready to EXPLODE with football fandom. Let’s take a look at 10 things that stuck out to me from DYJ2.

If you thought they could play any kind of game last year, well this year it looks even easier to dictate matchups and attack weaknesses. They should also be able to mitigate injury risk, meaning on any given Sunday any given Patriots weapon could go off. Bad for fantasy football, but good for real football (which is all I really care about anyway tbh)

Let’s lay out just a few of the personnel packages they could roll out and they kind of issues they could cause for a defense.

The 2016 Patriots season took a drastic turn on Sunday against the Dolphins.

The Pats exploded out of the gate, with Jimmy Garoppolo throwing three touchdowns and looking Brady-esque with his pocket movement. He delivered multiple strikes, converting the first four third-downs he faced.

It was like it was 2007 again. The defense forced four punts and two turnovers in the first half. The Dolphin’s headsets were going out. Garoppolo was about mak

And just like that, all the talk of Brady vs. Garoppolo comes to a screeching halt. Garoppolo will be back this season, but he shouldn’t see the field again (we hope).

A powder keg of hot taeks was just dropped overboard to the bottom of the ocean with this injury. But it will be back. They always come back.

For now, the Pats must survive the Texans and Bills with rookie Jacoby Brissett at quarterback and protect their 2-0 record. This is one of the most fascinating coaching challenges Bill Belichick has faced. Luckily it should only last two games.

More on Brissett, Garoppolo and a defense that gave up three consecutive touchdowns and needed an interception to seal what should’ve been a blowout in the Posits…

For the first four games, the New England Patriots offense will be helmed by Jimmy Garoppolo and then presumably the rest of the season by Brady (sorry, ESPN trolls I’m not linking to your dumb hot takes). Meaning that the Patriots offense will undergo the largest adjustment of the NFL season simply by obligation (barring Aaron Rodgers being suspended for four games for openly admitting he required his staff to overinflate balls).

Luckily for them, the Pats have the “Adjuster in Chief” in William Stephen Belichick and his “Secretary of Offense” in Joshua Thomas McDaniels. This inane lynching of Brady will be no different than his ’08 injury, they will adjust. Sure, not having 12 will hurt a buttload more than it helps, but there are few silver linings.

Does the Brady suspension make the Pats Offense MORE unpredictable? Yes.

Smarter (and lazier) men than I came up with a more nuanced way to approach analysis of the NFL, which is to evaluate it in four-game chunks that form trends. Football at the highest level is just stacks on stacks on stacks of adjustments, like a Mahjongg tile game. When you look at a 16 game season or multiple seasons, the nuances are indecipherable, but if you cut three-quarters of the tiles away, you can register the ways offenses and defenses are adjusting, which makes the areas of strength and weakness much easier to identify.

With four games a piece from two different QBs, this will make this type of evaluation more difficult for opposing defenses. Because after week 8 is the bye week, where the Pats self-evaluate and make adjustments in anticipation of teams exploiting their found weaknesses (Good timing). It’s worth noting that the Pats offense last year was the best in the league, by far over the first nine weeks of the season. To some extent, that calendar is extended this year (barring injury) through more than three-quarters of the regular season.

But not having the best player on the team, also makes the team much much much worse. Here are ways to blunt the most damage and the ways they could backfire.

Task 1: Build a variation of the offense that suits Garopollo’s strengths.

Phil Simms could have pulled this out of whatever’s left between his ears, but it’s worth mentioning that Josh McDaniels is pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good at tailoring an offense to individual players’ skills. It definitely won’t be Cassell ‘08 redux, (always link to the boss’ bomb post) which was like a Tesla being driven by my great grandmother. But McDaniels made Kyle Orton an effective QB (’10-’11 RTG: 87.1), so he will be chomping at the bit to highlight the areas that JG’s effective.

Complication: Jimmy G’s basically Brady but 6’2″ and unproven: he has a quick release, reads defenses well and works quickly, intense, hardworker, strong leader. So the offense probably won’t be that much different.

Task 2: Use wrinkles that you wouldn’t use with Brady under center.

When Brady’s running the offense, the Patriots rarely use gadget plays because the offense doesn’t need to gamble. But they’re certainly not opposed to it. (SIDENOTE: This is all anecdotal because no one has real statistics in the NFL, somehow the NBA can tell us within an inch where Bill Russell shot from on a Tuesday in 1964, and baseball has a pitch locator that identifies speed, spin, location in less than a second, but no one has ever charted plays in the NFL, despite it’s popularity and lack of a large sample size, good lord, anyway).

With Brady, all they have to do is execute or “do their job” (the most tired but still relevant phrase) at their various positions and they will be fine playing it straight. (INSERT: STAT for gadget plays, oh, right, there aren’t any) As someone who thinks the gadget play design and execution that the Patriots used in ’14 Ravens AFC Divisional round game were some of the most inspired and balls-out plays in NFL history, I am pro-gadget play. And as a football fan, I love things like this video:

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(My favorite is the bounce pass from Presbyterian, note for Indy turf, prepare). In order to win against tough defenses (ari, MIA, HOU, BUF) they may need to take a few chances with the young guy.

Complication: When a new QB takes over, typically you want to simplify not overcomplicate. Also gadget plays can blow up:

Seriously go over to Youtube and watch it, I’ll wait. Okay now watch it one more time. S000000o good. Collinsworth: What the… heck?

Task 3: Create mismatches that are easier to exploit.

Complication: You’re asking a person who hasn’t played a meaningful football game in 3 years to quickly identify personnel and adjust protections. Lot to ask.

Task 4: Create a nickname for this dude, a starting QB needs a solid handle.

Brees, Brady, Rodgers… nowhere does Garoppolo fit into that list. If he’s going to gain trade value or *gulp* be a long-term option for the Pats, this has to happen. Also, it’s exhausting typing Garoppolo, it’s like Belichick, it never looks right however you spell it. JG’s Italian, so my pick is Jimmy Gabagool.

Complication: Gabagool is harder to type.

Task 5: Protect the dude.

With no Brady and Ebner, I think Belichick and Caserio keep an extra O-lineman on the active roster, which should at least give them ample bodies at each position on the front line.

Complication: O-line will improve, but Solder’s coming off major surgery and Vollmer ain’t exactly a healthy doggy. Depth at Tackle isn’t optimal.

Task 6: Stop talking about how handsome he is until he wins a game.

This one is for media members and fawning “hilarious” tweeters, losers aren’t handsome, they’re “pretty boys”. Pretty boys suck.

All that being said, I’m decently optimistic, but first four weeks are gonna suck a little. Maybe he wins ugly, maybe he loses a few, maybe he loses em all, who knows. We know that Brady will be back and ready to go in October, that’s all that matters. Until then, keep the expectations low and keep Brady ’01 in mind. Godspeed.

When the Patriots hired Josh McDaniels last week to return just before the playoffs many Broncos writers and fans cried foul. Thus sparked an ongoing debate of what impact McDaniels could have in facing his former team.

Sane analytical football fans know that as far as the Broncos go, McDaniels impact would be minimal. Could he have some information about personnel that could be helpful? Sure. Maybe Demaryius Thomas has a tendency or something he doesn’t do well that the Pats didn’t catch on film. But other than some innocuous personnel insight McDaniels doesn’t possess any secrets the Pats don’t already know about the Broncos.

What is being overlooked is where McDaniels real impact will come. McDaniels is one of the most creative young offensive minds in the NFL, and he has been watching the Patriots from an outside perspective for the last three years. He has seen where the Pats have struggled, he has had to develop a game plan himself to attack them, and I’m sure he has imagined what he would do with the current set of Patriots weapons that did not exist when he left in 2009.

This experience and outside perspective from someone as smart as McDaniels is where he will be most useful for the Patriots playoff run. Surely he has ideas of how to use Gronk and Hernando in ways Belichick and Bill O’Brien might not have thought of. Maybe he even has ideas for the Patriots’ defensive side of the ball based on how he would attack them.

There’s also the fact that McDaniels faced the Ravens and all four of the remaining NFC playoff teams this season. The Patriots have only seen the Giants of that group.

McDaniels will be a new set of valuable eyes, with an outside perspective that could help concoct game plans and schemes that Patriots opponents have not seen yet this year.

Instead of getting lost in the debate of how much inside information McDaniels does or doesn’t have on the Broncos, we should be focusing on the addition of a football mind that Bill Belichick trusts. One who knows the Patriots offensive system inside and out and will provide valuable self-scouting information, while also having experience against five of the Patriots’ six remaining possible playoff opponents.